Finding Emmy
It’s officially been a near month since my last blog post. I wish that I could say my absence stemmed from the lack of excitement or blog-worthy material, but it has actually just been the total opposite. Aside from finally making the jump from PC to Mac (I have to admit, I have never made a better decision)… my life has been completely flipped over. The total reclusion from my outlet, the blog… was not necessarily by choice. During these past weeks, I have hardly had the chance to live, much less blog about it. However, on the last “night” of summer (as in, the last one before sleeping to go to class), I am blogging instead of being “cool” and living it up true college style.
Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.
-Dorothy Gale, The Wizard of Oz
There’s no place like home… There’s no place like home… There’s no place like home… -Dorothy Gale, The Wizard of Oz
Lessons from the Reader – (without reading it)
I absolutely love to read. In fact, as a child, I spent the majority of my summers alone in my room, comfortably nested with a book. Through books, I escaped the mundane haze of summer as I immersed myself in a completely different world. Yes, I was the nerdy kid preferring books over TV any day and everyday.
To me, the idea of not being able to read is unfathomable. Without reading, we lose understanding and insight. Our knowledge is limited, restricted, and blocked. We cannot interpret the world and truly comprehend the events surrounding us without reading. However, this summer consisted of task after task and now it’s the end of July. I had so many lofty plans of reading that have regrettably been further postponed. My schedule consumed so much of my time, I simply forgot about the hidden treasure I usually find through reading. Instead, I became the classic workaholic this summer, pausing little to eat and sleep. Somehow, I found the time to return home and take 2 hours to watch a movie with my family. Ironically, it was a movie that reminded me of the priceless gift of reading.
In the movie, The Reader, Hanna (Kate Winslet) is an illiterate SS guard who befriends a young Michael (a young Ralph Fiennes). From lacking the capability to read, Hanna represents how we as humans fail to grasp the inner meanings of our actions and fully comprehend their implications. Moreover, The Reader shows us how within our prideful narcissism, we are unable to read the true weight of the consequences of our actions and how they play out within others’ lives. For Hanna, the shame in admitting her ignorance causes her to be taken advantage of while others skip along without consequence.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to read The Reader by Bernhard Schlink this summer. However, after seeing the movie and learning about the characters and the role of literacy, I know this will be a crucial read. I only hope that I can remember to appreciate the lesson from The Reader and be literate within the scope of my own life.
Electricity = A Need
A few weeks ago, I visited northern Michigan with my boyfriend’s family. Mackinac Island was breathtaking and it exceeded my expectations–I was completely shocked. As if the horse and buggy atmosphere and a somewhat eerie Victorian-likeness weren’t odd enough, it seemed even stranger being a Tennessee-raised girl (since I was 3-months old!) and experiencing 50-degree weather in JULY! Unreal. As I sat shivering in a sweatshirt aboard the ferry, my phone informed me that back home, people were dying of the heat (AP Press – Memphis, TN 2009). Not unheard of for the South to experience brutal summers, but it still struck a nerve.
Perhaps it was due to the news items occurring last January where an electricity company shut down the power on a 93-year-old man when he failed to pay his bills (Stanton 2009). Since when is a human life worth less than a $1000′s? It just seems cold literally and figuratively. I just want to iterate that 93-years ago was 1916. Woodrow Wilson was president of the United States. The Mexican Revolution was underway and it’s middle of World War I. But this man whose life spanned WWI, WWII, Civil Rights and the inauguration of the first biracial president, Barack Obama, was not worth it. The electricity company was losing too much money to keep this 93-year-old man alive, so they did what any other corporation solely out for profit would do and pulled the plug, telling themselves “it’s business” as justification.
Then there was the quadriplegic in California that required his air conditioner to die comfortably. This poor man fell behind on his payments and the electric company soon threatened to shut his power off.
“Pay your bills on time or they’re going to shut you off and leave you dead. And they don’t care. Not at all. I told them I was going to die. She said, that’s not my problem. Are you going to pay it?” said Lunn.
Media outrage fueled statements from the power company recanting their original stance, and they even provided a list of “resources” (Baca 2009). To me, the damage was already done. It was clearly just “business” to them. It wasn’t until the outcry from other paying consumers that they offered a semblance of any compassion.
So, heat-induced deaths in Memphis reminded me of this earlier incidents and it made me think: isn’t electricity in OUR society a right? Most of us cannot just go grab firewood nor do we wish to in an age of a declining natural environment. Especially with the elderly and the sick. Surely we’re past the age of Social Darwinism, thinking this is just a human mimicry of natural selection. We know these rules don’t apply in our artificial bubble created by ourselves, right? Just another reason to why I hate money and the concept of it. It eradicates human compassion and replaces it with greed, greed and more greed.
I’ll admit it though. We are in a hard time. As much as I hate, I need money to money to live. That’s why everyone, myself included, is hyper-obsessed with this idea of conservation; use less electricity. The bills are too high; this is a way to cut back on expenses for extra money that we want during these hard economic times. Still, I think this is an important lesson to remember: we still have electricity. For most of us, the idea of reducing our electricity is another way to gain spare change, gas money or in my case, the Mac fund simply because I want one. It isn’t about survival. For some though, it was.
Sources:
AP Press – Memphis, TN. “3 More Heat-Related Deaths Around Memphis.” 6WATE.com: June 30th, 2009. <URL>
Baca, Nathan. “Dying Cathedral City Man’s Electricity Shut Off.” Kesq.com – News Channel 3: April 21, 2009. <URL>
Stanton, Ryan J. “Bay City raises electric rates as Marvin Schur’s death spurs anger.” The Bay City Times: January 27th, 2009. <URL>
Thangham, Chris V. “Michigan man freezes to death after electric company cuts power.” Digital Journal: January 26, 2009. <URL>
Coming Home
It’s easier to leave than to be left behind/ Leaving was never my proud…
As the end of my vacation approached last weekend, I dreaded it. The end of anything is always difficult for me, especially the end of vacation. Additionally, this end meant that boyfriend embarked on his journey to Italy–a date that I had marked and circled with anxious anticipated dread. Yet, here it is, a week past and I’ve made it. Despite the backlog of work, tedious catch-up studying, and of course, now my very overdue blog post… I’m here.
This past weekend I came back home to my parents’ house. It’s so different to enter home after you have moved out. It is like so familiar, but still different than you last remembered it. Now my mother is re-modeling so this effect is amplified. But any college kids that recently moved within the last few years know what I mean. It’s weird. Like you are a visitor in your old home. Your room is now a shell of what it was when you occupied it.
My parents are occupied within their established routine–one that I am no longer inside. Somehow, my return both spurs a welcomed interruption and an interruption none the less. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it surprises me. It’s hard to imagine your parents having a life without you. It’s hard to think that life goes on without you there. You expect it to stop–to be hindered indefinitely upon your return. I guess we’re all guilty of egocentrism at some times, even us anthropology majors.
More so, the time different in Europe for my boyfriend also shows this same effect. It’s unfathomable to us to remember time difference. It’s like hard to comprehend that while it is midnight here, dawn is breaking across the ocean. It’s like we expect even the sun to wait on us–hinge upon our presence to rise and set.
Point is, time never waits. It’s always moving. Never stopping. If you’re on vacation or having that seemingly endless day at work, it keeps ticking away. I guess the point of this entry is to just stop and think: somewhere in the world, it’s day at night. It sounds silly, but it helps us remember (me at least) that the world does not revolve around us or stop to accommodate us. It’s up to us to try to stay up with time.
In closing, it reminded me of the R.E.M. song, “Leaving New York” because this idea shows that it’s easier to recognize the variation than remaining behind to witness the slow evolution. Leaving home is never easy, but returning is the powerful reminder that we actually left home and we can’t ever REALLY come back.
del.icio.us Tags: REM,leaving new york,home,leaving,vacation,return,journey,time,time zone
The American Dream
One of my biggest pet peeves is how most of the right-wing always blames the immigrant. Since when is it a crime for someone to want to do better for their family? Isn’t this what fuels the American ideal? To me, I wouldn’t do anything different. Especially when I knew that jobs existed in a neighboring country that would help stop my family from dying of starvation. I can’t blame that person at all. They just want what every American boy or girl wants-the American Dream as portrayed by Horatio Alger in a time of monopolies and even bigger money like Cornelius Vanderbilt and Dale Carnegie. So I would do the same thing as the “illegal.” it’s what we all would do. But do I think illegal immigration is a problem ? Of course.
Illegal immigration is a huge problem. It detracts from legal immigrants and American citizens. It removes labor regulations mandated for American workers and helps companies maximize profit by minimizing cost. In fact, the middle class suffers with higher taxes to account for the lack thereof of manufacturing laborers’ wages possessing tax. Clearly, illegal immigration is a major problem. However, I don’t blame the immigrant.
I blame the corporations. Corporations keep hiring illegal immigrants over able-bodied Americans. So to the racist redneck, the next time you’re in Wal-Mart and pissed because there are so “damn many illegals,” try something new: THINK. The very store giving you those rollback prices brought those “illegals” here by hiring them. How else could Wal-Mart make a profit? Remember what we are actually paying to have milk at the cheapest price.
So to me, it’s great to see that the Obama administration is shifting how they handle the problem of illegal immigration. They are targeting the companies versus pursuing costly lawsuits to charge the immigrants themselves (cough cough Bush). The corporations are the real problem here. They are the ones killing the idyllic American’s dream. I’m glad to see we’re finally learning to prosecute the true criminal.
Dreaming is NOT a crime. It’s the ideal American way of life. Dream big and chase your dreams. That should NEVER be outlawed.
del.icio.us Tags: American Dream,immigrant,America,monopoly,Horatio Alger,meritocracy
The New York Times:
“U.S. Shifts Strategy on Illicit Work by Immigrants”
JULIA PRESTON
The Obama administration is replacing workplace raids and roundups of workers by immigration authorities with a less confrontational approach to employers such as American Apparel… keep reading
Mackinac Island – Somewhere in Time
Visiting Mackinac Island was not only breathtaking, but it reminded me of my childhood. Being a little girl obsessed with the Victorian times, I lived to learn about the era’s unique and seemingly glamorous lifestyle. It’s no surprise that my favorite movie was Somewhere in Time. I loved the idea of someone traveling backward to a much more sophisticated time to find the woman of his dreams. I longed myself to see the world as it looked 100 years ago before iPhones, computers or even cars. Going to Mackinac Island provides the closest experience to time travel. From exploring the fort, conversing with the “soldiers” that retain as much historical accuracy as possible, I felt like I was somewhere else in time. It was a great experience and one that I will remember forever. It reminded me of the importance to preserve and remember our past. Our past holds the key to understanding both our present and future. I loved how Mackinac has captured the glamour and valor of the Victorian age while still reminding us of the importance of the memory of our past to ensure the progression of the future. It’s truly a trip back…Somewhere in Time.
del.icio.us Tags: Mackinac Island Somewhere in Time Grand Hotel
Children Know Best
Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.
This past weekend, I went home to celebrate Father’s Day with my family. As tradition at my house, my Dad made his normal rounds to Blockbuster™. Now, it takes a lot for a movie to cause me to think after it’s over. It takes even more for it to inspire me enough to want to write on it. However, this past weekend, my Dad brought home a movie called The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.
Honestly, I was expecting another completely disturbing depiction of the period within recent history that marked a complete loss of humanity. The Holocaust continues to stand testament for the dangers of ideas in the wrong hands and the absolute appalling tendency of silent complicity within human nature. Most movies capture this complete loss of human compassion frighteningly dead-on and remind us to NEVER forget. However, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas provided a fresh, rarely explored side of the Holocaust.
Told mainly from the perspective of a young boy, the son of a high-ranking Nazi, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas sends a poignant message: children rarely seek justification—especially from abstract absurd social constructs like racism—to explain their actions. Children, most often, remind us how things really are.
For the young boy, he fails to grasp the anti-Semitic rationale and sees only another boy just like himself. To me, this is the key component to remember and learn from the Holocaust—Jewish, Asian, American, Hispanic, etc… we’re all really just human. Despite popular conviction, there is not an innate hierarchy, only a flawed social man-made ideology. An ideology that if allowed to continue, will keep promoting a legacy of hatred and intolerance of “difference.”
As an anthropology major, I am fascinated by the concept of human “nature.” To me, it is a intrinsically dark with a hidden capacity to commit evil. It is, however, the recognition of another to be like oneself that disallows us to condone violence. When we allow anyone to become the “other” or “outsider,” it opens up the dangerous slippery slope to justify complicity.
On the contrary, there is still the good within all of us. Hidden under our well-guarded reason and logic, there is the inner truth at the heart telling us that we are no different than those around us. So even, though I think we all possess to capacity to commit great evil, I still believe that we possess to greater strength to perform good. We are human after all.
del.icio.us Tags: Holocaust humanity complicity Anne Frank mentality racism
